


Our Intentions were Intangible and Sweet

by taenia



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, excessive nerding about biology, explaining biologically impossible things through the power of feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taenia/pseuds/taenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dilophosaurus was his first success. Henry didn't know why it worked; only that it had. It was a cold, grey day and he had been fighting with Hammond. Angry and bitter, he had been flipping through a National Geographic article about Australia, wishing that he were anywhere but in the middle of a godforsaken jungle. When he went into the machine, he was full of rage, and when he came out, there was a mad, skittering thing in the other room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



The stegosaur was purple, with bright yellow plates.

Henry Wu gaped when he saw it.

“How the hell did you _know_?”

Ten minutes ago, John Hammond had escorted him into a very small room with gunmetal walls, and had told him to think about his favorite childhood toy.

“Something that you lost, maybe,” Hammond had said. “Something that you loved.”

 

Now, the old man was holding a purple stegosaur in his hands. Henry took it from Hammond, examining it like a precious relic. It smelled a little like his mother’s kitchen, and a lot like a five-year-old boy had dragged it absolutely everywhere. The stuffed dinosaur was battered and stained; Henry recognized every scuff.

 

It was an absolute impossibility.

 

Later, Hammond showed him his collection – an Antikythera mechanism in beautiful working order, gilded caskets, a jade-pommelled sword. None were as remarkable as Henry’s own lost treasure, which he held close to his chest, expecting it to evaporate into mist at any second.

Hammond made the pitch over dinner.

 

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know how the machine works. I’ve had a dozen engineers try to figure the fucking thing out, and none of them know how it works. But it _does_ work.”

Henry was still trying to absorb the impossibility of everything that Hammond was saying. He fiddled with his fork. “Okay, but, if this is all true, why do you want me? I mean, I’m a geneticist. I work on _Xenopus_ … there’s no way that I’m qualified to do archaeology. And even if I was, Mr. Hammond, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t want to. I _like_ biology. I’m not interested in recovering lost treasure.”

When Hammond smiled, he looked remarkably like a hyena.

“I don’t want you to do archaeology Mr. Wu. The artifacts just prove that the machine _works_. I used them to convince InGen to invest in this little project, to show that I can bring things back from the past.”

Hammond paused. “I want _you_ to bring back an animal.”

 

He took the job, of course. It was easy, and paid well, and if it ever actually worked, it would be worth it. When Henry wasn’t in the machine, he read papers about dinosaurs, and looked at dinosaur art. If he wanted to bring one back, he needed to understand what he was asking for.

 

The first few attempts were a disaster. Most of the dinosaurs that Henry brought back died almost immediately. Though they were outwardly beautiful, Henry found misshapen hearts and blind guts when he dissected them.

He kept trying.

 

The _Dilophosaurus_ was his first success. Henry didn’t know why it worked; only that it had. It was a cold, grey day and he had been fighting with Hammond. Angry and bitter, he had been flipping through a National Geographic article about Australia, wishing that he were anywhere but in the middle of a godforsaken jungle.

When he went into the machine, he was full of rage, and when he came out, there was a mad, skittering thing in the other room.

The beast almost killed Hammond before they could tranquilize it.

 

After that, it was almost easy.

 

Elated by his success, Henry thought about the dinosaurs of his youth; huge, hulking sauropods with necks a thousand feet long, spike-faced Triceratops, hadrosaurs, and even a stegosaur, which looked more like a tank than his fluffy toy. Hammond’s zoo was growing.

 

Hammond came to him after a particularly successful day, and asked him to wear something nice. “I’m trying to convince someone to take a job here, and I’d like him to meet you.”

Henry found himself wearing the uncomfortably hot suit that he had worn his first day on the island, sitting across from a burly South African man dressed in khakis and a scowl while Hammond chatted.

“Look, Robert, I want my best man here. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“You’ve got paddocks full of dumb herbivores, Hammond. You don’t need me. I’m very impressed, of course, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with lions.”

Hammond looked over to Henry. “It’s true that we only have one predator right now. But I’ve been asking Henry to retrieve herbivores until we have a gamekeeper. Our first carnivore nearly killed us, and we need you if we’re going to make more.”

Robert scowled, turning back to his asparagus.

When dinner was finished, the man seemed no closer to accepting Hammond’s offer. Henry suspected that he would leave in the morning.

 

The night was hot and oppressive. As soon as he was on the porch of the dining hall, Henry began fumbling with his tie and jacket, stripping down to his undershirt. Gathering up his rumpled, sweat stained clothing in one arm, he began to walk back to the staff quarters. His head swam; he had drunk several glasses of wine at dinner, the first after several months of teetotaling devotion to his work.

“Wu, was it?”

Henry stopped and turned. Robert was standing behind him, framed by yellow light swimming from the dining room.

“Just Henry,” he said.

“You’re the genius who’s making Hammond’s dinosaurs, then?”

Henry felt nothing like a genius, acutely aware of the bundle of sweaty clothing in his arm, the drunken thrum in his head. “I’m not actually making them. But yes.”

Robert walked to the porch railing, leaning his elbows heavily against it. “Well, whatever it is you do. Hammond says you’re going to be giving me a tyrannosaur if I take this job.”

“A … _what_?” Henry was too drunk to have this conversation.

“You know. _Tyrannosaurus rex_. The king of dinosaurs, or at least a bloody big one.”

“I … I really don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean, Hammond wants predators, yes, but I assumed that we’d go with something smaller. Something manageable. No one’s going to care what we have as long as we have dinosaurs.”

Robert grinned. “So Hammond didn’t tell you. Well, Henry, I know John Hammond, and I know that if he’s doing this much, he’s going to want a damn tyrannosaur.”

 

Three weeks later, Robert was still on the island. He woke early and spent most of his time trudging through the paddocks, taking notes on the animals. Henry saw very little of him, except on mail days, when they met up to drive down to the dock.

Henry’s mother had sent him a package -- large but surprisingly light. He had accepted it with surprise, while Robert signed for several large crates of supplies.

“So, what did your mum send you?” Robert was driving far too fast, peering curiously at the brown box in Henry’s lap.

“Er, I have no idea. Can you please look at the road?”

“Road’s not any different than it was on the way down. Besides, it’s Hammond’s Jeep.”

Henry grinned. “If I open this and tell you what it is, will you please pay attention to where we’re driving?”

Robert made a show of turning back to look at the chalk-colored road.

Henry turned the box over, trying to open it as carefully as he could. The car jerked suddenly, and he tore back a flap of the box, exposing dusty purple fabric.

“Holy shit,” he said.

Robert turned back to look at Henry, who had abandoned all attempts to be careful, and tore at the box, revealing a shabby, plush purple dinosaur and a folded piece of white paper. “Huh,” he said. “Not what I would have guessed.”

Henry felt the blood drain from his face, and he unfolded the paper.

_Dear Henry,_

_I was cleaning out our attic today, when I found him. I thought you might like to be reunited with an old friend._

_-Mom_

 

Henry looked at Robert. “This,” he said, “is not possible.”

 

When they pulled into the staff bungalow, Henry rushed to his room, holding the dinosaur his mother had sent. Robert followed him silently.

Hammond’s dinosaur was still in the room, on Henry’s desk. He put down the other dinosaur, the one his mother had sent, the real one. This was impossible.

 

“So, do you want to tell me about your apparent obsession with purple dinosaurs, then?” Robert’s voice was gently mocking.

Henry turned, startled by the other man’s presence. “Um, no, it’s not like that. It’s just … this was my favorite toy when I was a kid. And when I came here, Hammond asked me to remember it, and then he gave it to me, exactly the way I remembered it.”

Robert’s face remained blank.

“It means,” Henry said, “that his machine doesn’t work the way he thinks it does. I’m not taking dinosaurs out of the past. I can’t be.”

 

He turned back, looking at the two plush toys. Side-by-side, he could see that they weren’t alike, not at all. Hammond’s dinosaur practically glowed – it was bright and beautiful, and looked like the sort of beloved toy you would put on a Christmas card. The other one was dull and dusty by comparison; it looked like one of ten thousand, made to be thrown away.

 

He should have known, of course. Henry’s _Dilophosaurus_ had elongate hyoid bones and muscles that it _shouldn’t_ , if you believed the fossils. Hammond, like an idiot, had been delighted; it convinced him of the biological utility of his monsters – living proof that paleontologists didn’t know a fucking thing. Henry, like an idiot, had believed him.

 

Henry cupped his hands in his face, breathed deep, then slumped down into the chair in front of his desk. Robert was still in the room, looking at him carefully.

“So, what the hell are you doing, then?” he asked.

Henry sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’re really dinosaurs. I think they’re just things that I made up, and Hammond doesn’t know the difference. They’re… I dunno. What I think dinosaurs are supposed to be like.”

Robert’s expression did not change. “Does it matter?” he asked. “I mean, they’re as good a guess as anything, and people will still pay a mint to see them. Who cares?”

Henry looked up. “When I made that first _Dilophosaurus_ , it tried to kill Hammond. And I think that it did that … because I was angry with him. If I make a goddamn _T. rex_ , Robert, it’s not going to be an _animal_. It’s going to be something that terrifies me. It’s going to be a _really bad idea._ ”

Robert smiled suddenly, placing his hand on Henry’s hunched shoulder. “ _Good_ ,” he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on this, but Carmarthen deserves to know that I am, in fact, planning on finishing this, and also that I am thinking of her. No raptors or overt queerness yet, but look, I HINTED AT THE EXISTENCE OF THESE THINGS. Anyway, it’s slower going than I thought it would be, and in dire need of editing, but WHATEVER I’LL GET AROUND TO IT EVENTUALLY.

Henry Wu lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Muldoon had been right, of course; Hammond had asked him for a _Tyrannosaurus_. Henry had tried to counter him with every argument he could think of, but Hammond, the damned idiot, had insisted.

“Henry,” he said. “People expect certain things. And when they pay thousands of dollars to fly to our little island and see dinosaurs, I guarantee that every child there, every adult, will want to see the world’s most famous predator.”

That was the problem with Hammond, really; he never wanted to do the _smart_ thing when he could do something shocking or dramatic or … well, something that would make him money. So, tomorrow, or the day after, or at least certainly sometime this week, if not the next, Henry was going to have to go into that godawful machine, and make a _T. rex_ for John Hammond. And if that weren’t bad enough, that crazy South African bastard wanted him to do it, too.

Eventually, he closed his eyes, and slid into restless dreams of teeth and claws and rent flesh.

He awoke to a bright blue morning and the smell of the sea. Fine weather was a rarity on Isla Sorna; the bright equatorial sunshine made Henry’s fears seem more absurd than they had been under rain and shadowy skies.

But after breakfast, Hammond was in the lab, waiting for him, all smiles and grandfatherly charm. Henry _knew_ that the bastard had come to make sure that he  didn’t weasel out of it; there was nothing for him to do, but to try. Muldoon was there, Hammond’s scowling khaki shadow, with an enormous capture gun slung over his shoulder. Henry wondered if Muldoon had gone to Hammond with Henry’s suspicions about the machines; it seemed that neither of them expected Henry to fail.

 _Anyway_ , he though bitterly, _it’s_ _just a damn great big iguana. It won’t be that bad_.

But he could not entirely contain the twisted lump in his gut when Hammond, smiling, closed the door to the machine.

***

After that, he didn’t go back in for a long time.

Hammond didn’t seem to notice, and Henry had plenty of work to do. InGen wanted him to clone the dinosaurs, and to make them patentable, and, more importantly marketable. The things that came out of the machine were only blueprints, after all, but InGen wanted a dozen copies of every animal, tailored so that they could neither feed themselves nor reproduce without human assistance. 

The second one, at least, was easy. A cloned W chromosome with sex-determining genes was sufficient to force an embryo to develop female gonads; they saved tissue and sperm from the males before culling them. The first, though … Henry had tried to explain, in a dozen different ways, that you couldn’t simply turn off a critical biosynthetic pathway and expect development to proceed apace. InGen had sent him a team of systems biologists who had, as far as Henry could tell, never worked on _anything_ other than  soy beans.

So Henry worked, creating imperfect copies of his monsters, resolutely ignoring the machine, trying to ignore the bone-shattering roars that occasionally broke across the island during the night.

***

His peace couldn’t last, though. 

On a drizzling October afternoon, Hammond once again strode into his office, radiating the aura of a helpless, disappointed old man. Henry’s heart sunk.

“There just no good, Henry,” Hammond began.

“Pardon me?” Henry turned away from his computer, and turned to Hammond. Sweeping pronouncements always meant that he was going to have to give _something_ his full attention.

“The dinosaurs,” Hammond said, impatiently. “Robert doesn’t think much of them, and I’m inclined to agree. They just don’t sparkle the way that we need them to, if we want to capture the public.”

Henry kept his face carefully blank. “We can always try to engineer them,” he said. _I made you a damn Tyrannosaur_ , he thought, _in spite of my better judgment, I made to a goddamn forty foot monster and now you are telling me that it doesn’t sparkle?_

“No, no no.” Hammond waved his hand impatiently. “These are _real_ dinosaurs, and the public wants _real_ dinosaurs.  But Robert thinks, and I agree, that their behavior just isn’t very interesting. We need to stimulate them. Create a real Jurassic ecosystem, not pen them up like pacing leopards in a third rate zoo. _Enrichment_. That’s the word. For the animals and for our guests.” Hammond accompanied this last word with an emphatic sweep of his hands, as though he were in front of a crowd of hundreds, and not in Henry’s rather cluttered, slightly mildewy office.

“Well,” said Henry. “We certainly don’t want the _T. rex_ hunting our brachiosaurs, but I’m sure there are things we can do to keep it … interested in its environment. I’m really not an expert on this, though; you’ll have to go to Robert for that sort of thing.”

Hammond sighed. “Oh I have,” he said. ‘I have. He thinks that we need more kinds of animals; not just the big, impressive ones, but little ones, too; things that we can release across the park to scavenge. He also thinks that we might try to bring back something social, and I have just the thing.” Here, Hammond brought out a folder that he had been carrying. Henry took it, and opened it; it contained a single, photocopied manuscript. He glanced at the title, before putting the paper to one side of his desk: _Social Behavior and Intelligence of Dromaeosaurid Dinosaurs_, _by Alan Grant_.

“I’ll talk to Muldoon about it,” he said.

***

It took another two days for him to catch up to Muldoon. He finally found him, alone, in the staff cafeteria at nine o’ clock in the evening. Henry had spent most of the evening extracting and sequencing DNA, and had expected to eat the cold leftovers of his lunch alone.

Instead, though, Robert was there, with a half-finished place of food and a glass of wine, his feet propped on the table.Henry sat down next to him.

“So, uh,” he said. “I understand that you’re not happy with my dinosaurs.”

Muldoon turned to look at Henry. “It’s not my job to be happy, or unhappy with them.”

Henry felt himself glaring. He might have to keep the peace with Hammond, but if Robert was going to be snide, then _he_ could sit in the damn machine and dream up nightmares, instead. “Well, Hammond tells me that you want scavengers,” he said. “And wolves, or lions, or whatever.  A pack animal.”

Muldoon simply nodded, and then gestured to his wine glass. “Do you want any? I’m having myself a bit of a night. Normally I wouldn’t, but Hammond’s interviewing a replacement for me tomorrow, and I have to pretend to like the man.”

Henry looked up at this. ‘Wait,” he said, “you’re leaving?”

Muldoon took a sip of the wine. “I am,” he said. “I’ve been offered a job in Kenya. It’s sunny, there, and the work is interesting.”

Which meant, of course, Henry thought, rather bitterly, that Muldoon did _not_ find his dinosaurs interesting work. “I thought you wanted a tyrannosaur,” he said.

“I did. And now I’ve watched her every day for bloody _weeks_ on end, and, Henry,” Muldoon said, “She’s a great, stupid lizard.” He sighed, then, and gave Henry a wry look. “I’m sure you’re _very_ good at your job,” he said, “because Hammond only hires people who are very, very good at their jobs, but, Henry, I don’t _care_ about this creature. I used to think it a tragedy that something that wonderful no longer walked the earth, and now I find myself wishing that it had stayed that way.”

Henry felt rather hot, although he had not looked at the tyrannosaur since that first, horrible day, when she was made. “She certainly scares the hell out of _me_ ,” Henry said.

Muldoon smiled. “You scare too easily,” he said.

***

Hammond asked Henry to sit through the next day’s interview. He did not don the formal suit again, remembering how hot and dizzy he had felt, all, apparently, for nothing. He wore a t-shirt and shorts, and listened through dinner as the man, Roland Tembo, rattled off the list of hunting parks he had worked for. Henry didn’t like him, and picked listlessly at his food. Muldoon simply stared across the table at Roland, his face unreadable.

Later that night, Tembo andHammond had gone back to the guest lodge; Henry and Muldoon were walking silently side by side, heading to the employee dormitories.

“Do you know him?” Henry asked suddenly.

Muldoon looked surprised by the question. “Yes,” he said. “We, ah … we used to be very close.”

Henry said nothing.

Muldoon continued for a few steps, before stopping, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts. “We had a falling out, of sorts,” he said. “After that, Roland went to work in India, and I got a job in Kenya. But I recommended him to Hammond because he is, in spite of his flaws, very good. And I think he’ll find your great monsters more interesting than I do.”

Henry looked at Muldoon with sudden irritation. “You know,” he said at last, “you could give me a chance, at the very least. I mean, I’ve only been making the things that Hammond _tells_ me to make – and Hammond wants big, flashy dinosaurs. They’re not what I want to make either, and it’s been less than a _week_ since I knew that _anyone_ else wanted anything different.”

“After what you told me,” Muldoon said, finally, “about Hammond’s machine; I admit that I’ve been looking for a reason to leave. I wanted to test myself against the past, and instead I find myself tested only by your imagination. It’s just … it’s not enough.”

“You _haven’t_ been tested against _my_ imagination,” said Henry, sudden irritation creeping into his voice. “You’ve been tested against goddamn _John Hammond_. And while Hammond’s admittedly, a force of nature, I really don’t think that you should judge me by his requests.”

Robert was quiet for a few, impossibly long moments. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll stay. At least until you make something that’s yours.”

Henry smiled. He didn’t know why, but he found, suddenly, that he was very glad Robert would be staying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Xenopus laevis_ , Henry’s model organism of choice, has a ZW sex determination system, just like that found in birds. And while they don’t change their sex in response to environmental cues, despite what Alan Grant would have you believe, certain pesticides, such as Atrazine, can induce chromosomally male frogs to undergo female gonadogenesis – these chromosomal males can go on to lay fertile eggs. One presumes that Henry, being a bang-up awesome kid at the top of his field, had at least read a paper or two about this …
> 
> Soy beans, of course, are an important source of lysine … and not just for dinosaurs, but also for humans, since we can’t produce it any more than dinosaurs can. I’m tempted to believe that Henry never actually found a solution to that particular problem, and just told Hammond “Oh, yeah, we made ‘em so they can’t produce … lysine. Yep. They’ll die without it. Definitely.” True as far as it goes, but also a wee bit goddamn disingenuous.


End file.
